The New Majority: Toward a Popular Progressive Politics

In an era of widespread and unsettling change in workplaces, families, and communities, most Americans yearn for a government that will take their side. The contributors to this bold and visionary book argue that America is ready for a progressive politics with substance and bite. They contend that by embarking on a popular progressive course, the Democratic Party can become the moral voice―and practical partner―of all American families striving for a better life.
This provocative book is a dialogue among Stanley B. Greenberg, Theda Skocpol, and other well-known thinkers. The contributors reject conservative answers to America’s most pressing problems―fraying social ties, hard-pressed family life, sluggish economic growth, and widening gaps between the life circumstances of the most privileged and of everyone else. They discuss a renewal of the nation’s social contract, suggest how to revitalize American democracy (not only by reducing the role of big money, but also by reconnecting people to politics), and explore how popular Democrats can fashion broad electoral alliances in the years to come. The Democratic party must undertake a new mission to champion the daily needs of Americans who work for a living, the authors maintain. In this period of change, America needs a government that does more, not less. By opting for a popular progressive course, Democrats can realign national debates and inspire a broad new electoral majority.
Contributors:
Alan Brinkley
Marc Caplan
Michael C. Dawson
Jeff Faux
Marshall Ganz
Stanley B. Greenberg
Ira Katznelson
Theodore R. Marmor
Jerry L. Mashaw
Karen M. Paget
Miles S. Rapoport
Michael J. Sandel
Theda Skocpol
Paul Starr
Margaret Weir
William Julius Wilson

Stanley B. Greenberg is chairman of Greenberg Research, Inc., a national survey and polling firm. He was pollster to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 and polling adviser to Nelson Mandela in 1994 and Tony Blair in 1997. Theda Skocpol is professor of government and sociology at Harvard University and author of the prize-winning 1992 book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers and of Boomerang: Health Reform and the Turn Against Government.